


Chutzpah

by CelestialHeavens1



Series: Of Spies and Conmen [2]
Category: Covert Affairs, White Collar
Genre: Gen, Secret Identity, Secrets, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestialHeavens1/pseuds/CelestialHeavens1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matthew Keller was a lot smarter than most people gave him credit for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chutzpah

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing.
> 
> In season 3, post 3x11 Checkmate

**Chutzpah**   
_Boldness, audacity, insolence, nerve, gall, or a combination thereof, weighted according to the situational need_

Matthew Keller was a lot smarter than most people gave him credit for.

He made Neal Caffrey for a spook the first time he saw him. It wasn't one big thing that made Keller know, but all the little things. He flirted with every woman in sight, but he never seemed to trust them fully. He'd eye his way around the room discreetly when he thought no one was watching. He'd pick up cover stories so easy and drop them just as quick. The conman was good, too good.

Still, he found he liked the man. He had guts, although if he was really a spy, he'd have to be. Just because James Bond used good looks and luck to make it by ninety percent of the time didn't mean real spies could. And just because when he'd met Neal the first time, he'd been playing at the world backgammon finals in the Grand Casino in Monaco, smoking a cigar and drinking some French wine he couldn't pronounce properly without butchering the name, with women draping themselves over him, didn't mean he was some debonair conman. No, if anything, it just proved how deep under cover he was.

He noticed that things would go missing. After jobs, things wouldn't be there that should. The coins in Madrid, the paintings from Luxembourg, the diamond necklace in Prague, the statue in Munich, the treasure that should have been twice the size that it was….

And just how did he get in bed with a princess that time? She definitely should have been able to tell that he was a conman, so why take him home or give him a solid gold tray?

His knee ached badly.

That shot should have been impossible. It was impossible. So how did Neal make it?

Maybe he wasn't a spy. Spies killed people and Neal hated the idea of killing, so it seemed unlikely. But he had to be part of the alphabet soup, didn't he? He was too American to be British, so he couldn't be MI6 or MI5 or SIS or whatever they were calling themselves these days. And though he spoke German and Russian like a native, he couldn't be FSB or SVR or BND or BfV. He was pretty sure that Caffrey wasn't Military intelligence, so he could rule those out. He had heard him speak in French and Greek before, so those were just as possible as CIA or FBI under some other name, like Nick or Nathan. At this point, he wondered if even Neal knew his real name.

He hissed in pain. Neal shouldn't have been able to shoot that well. One day he was going to have to come straight out and ask him, but until then, he could admit the man's guts. He did something Keller never could… he was working with the FBI.

 

 


End file.
